Fairies are mythical beings or legendary creatures, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural. Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term fairy offers many definitions. Sometimes the term describes any magical creature, including goblins or gnomes: at other times, the term only describes a specific type of more ethereal creature. In modern usage, faries are usually depicted as tiny human-appearing creatures with wings and the ability to perform magic.

Light as any wind that blows So fleetly did she stir, The flower, she touch'd on, dipt and rose, And turned to look at her. ~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Science seeks to explain everything—but maybe we don't want everything explained. We don't want all the magic to go out of life. We want to remain connected to the secret parts of our inner beings, to the ancient mysteries, and to the most distant outposts of the universe. We want to believe. And as long as we do, the fairies will remain.

When you were a bird you knew the fairies pretty well, and you remember a good deal about them in your babyhood, which it is a great pity you can't write down, for gradually you forget, and I have heard of children who declared that they had never once seen a fairy. Very likely if they said this in the Kensington Gardens, they were standing looking at a fairy all the time. The reason they were cheated was that she pretended to be something else. This is one of their best tricks.

When a new baby laughs for the first time a new fairy is born, and as there are always new babies there are always new fairies. They live in nests on the tops of trees; and the mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillies who are not sure what they are.

Variant: "There ought to be one fairy for every boy and girl." "Ought to be? Isn't there?" "No. You see children know such a lot now, they soon don't believe in fairies, and every time a child says, 'I don't believe in fairies,' there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead."

FAIRY, n. A creature, variously fashioned and endowed, that formerly inhabited the meadows and forests. It was nocturnal in its habits, and somewhat addicted to dancing and the theft of children. The fairies are now believed by naturalists to be extinct, though a clergyman of the Church of England saw three near Colchester as lately as 1855, while passing through a park after dining with the lord of the manor. The sight greatly staggered him, and he was so affected that his account of it was incoherent.

Bright Eyes, Light Eyes! Daughter of a Fay!I had not been a married wife a twelvemonth and a day,I had not nursed my little one a month upon my knee,When down among the blue bell banks rose elfins three times three:They griped me by the raven hair, I could not cry for fear,They put a hempen rope around my waist and dragged me here;They made me sit and give thee suck as mortal mothers can,Bright Eyes, Light Eyes! strange and weak and wan!

Or fairy elves,Whose midnight revels by a forest sideOr fountain, some belated peasant sees,Or dreams he sees, while overhead the MoonSits arbitress, and nearer to the EarthWheels her pale course; they, on their mirth and danceIntent, with jocund music charm his ear;At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.

The weakness of the attack lies in its lack of discrimination. It is possible that psychic surgery is a hoax, that plants cannot really read our minds, that Kirlian photography (photographing the "life-aura" of living creatures) may depend on some simple electrical phenomenon. But to lump all of these together as if they were all on the same level of improbability shows a certain lack of discernment. The same applies to the list of "hoaxes." Rhine's careful research into extrasensory perception at Duke University is generally conceded to be serious and sincere, even by people who think his test conditions were too loose. The famous fairy photographs are quite probably a hoax, but no one has ever produced an atom of proof either way, and until someone does, no one can be quite as confident as the editors of Time seem to be. And Ted Serios has never at any time been exposed as a fraud — although obviously he might be. We see here a phenomena that we shall encounter again in relation to Geller: that when a scientist or a "rationalist" sets himself up as the defender of reason, he often treats logic with a disrespect that makes one wonder what side he is on.